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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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The U.S. Supreme Court could soon curtail judges' powers to rein in President Donald Trump.
The court is set to hear arguments on Thursday in three cases consolidated under Trump v. CASA that challenges Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally. The order was halted nationwide by three district courts.
The legal issue before the court is not about birthright citizenship, but whether individual judges can give nationwide effect to their rulings. The Trump administration wants the court to narrow the nationwide injunctions to cover only the people and groups that are sued.
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Why It Matters
Judges across the country have issued dozens of orders delaying Trump's agenda. There are currently more than 200 lawsuits challenging the administration's actions.
But if the Supreme Court limits nationwide—or universal—injunctions, the president will have much more freedom to implement his policies, even if they are deemed illegal or unconstitutional by a lower-court judge.
What To Know
"It's very possible, maybe even likely, that the Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions in Trump v. CASA," Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the firm West Coast Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles, told Newsweek.
Some justices "have expressed concern that such injunctions give district judges the power to block federal laws nationwide," he said.
University of Notre Dame law professor Samuel Bray told The Economist that judges have been overreaching to thwart "almost every major executive initiative" from Democratic and Republican presidents in the past decade. Before 2015, universal injunctions had been far less common.
While Bray thinks Trump's birthright citizenship order is wrong and would sow "chaos and harmful legal uncertainty," he believes it could be better addressed by "declaratory judgments" and class-action lawsuits.
In recent years, some justices have expressed criticism of universal injunctions.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the court's conservatives, argued in a 2020 concurring opinion that injunctions are "meant to redress the injuries sustained by a particular plaintiff in a particular lawsuit."
He said the "routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions" and that the court must address them.
He also noted that nationwide injunctions mean that plaintiffs can shop around for the judge that is most likely to be sympathetic to their cause.
"Because plaintiffs generally are not bound by adverse decisions in cases to which they were not a party, there is a nearly boundless opportunity to shop for a friendly forum to secure a win nationwide," he wrote.
Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court's three liberal justices, has also taken aim at sweeping injunctions and the "judge shopping" by plaintiffs.
"In the Trump years, people used to go to the Northern District of California, and in the Biden years, they go to Texas," she said in 2022. "It just can't be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process."
Republican and Democratic administrations have complained about their policies being blocked by nationwide injunctions issued by a single judge. President Joe Biden's solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, filed a brief in December 2024, after Trump won a second term, asking the Supreme Court to limit these orders after a Texas judge blocked an anti-money laundering law.
What People Are Saying
Neama Rahmani told Newsweek: "The Supreme Court may establish a rule to limit injunctions to the parties in the case or the district or circuit where the case is filed. Or it may require a higher standard to grant nationwide relief.
"Though the criticism of nationwide injunctions may be warranted, having inconsistent immigration holdings in different states may be its own problem. Immigration law needs to be uniform and applied consistently across the country."
Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, told USA Today that the court could reaffirm the use of nationwide injunctions: "I would have thought that the faction that wants to end universal injunctions would have preferred a less sympathetic case to do that in."
President Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post in March: "STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!"
What Happens Next
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the issue on Thursday.
Update 5/14/25, 5:45 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Neama Rahmani.
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